11/20/2008

Washington State, USAClimate change already felt in South Sound - an increase of 1.5 degrees in the state's average daily temperature between 1900 and 2000 in Washington has contributed to a 30 percent decline in the spring snowpack in the lower Cascades and a similar decline in summer stream flows in several sensitive river basins. Global climate models suggest the average annual temperature in the state will continue to climb about 0.5 degrees Fahrenheit each decade over the next 50 years, leading to milder winters, hotter summers, less water, more wildfires and drought, loss of hydropower and diminished summer water supplies. "It's more than climate change; IT'S CLIMATE CHAOS." Take the iconic Puget Sound. Cities that have grown to the water's edge, including Olympia, will be susceptible to sea-level rise, which is predicted to be 6 inches by 2050 and 14 inches by 2100. Nowhere is the problem more acute than South Sound because the high tides are higher at the southern end of Puget Sound.